


The Compartments

by PjStafford



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 16:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 6,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PjStafford/pseuds/PjStafford
Summary: Written for #XFSummer2019  for Geraldine@MinuetePrompt:  “Dynamic Duo takes a forced vacation“





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minuete](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minuete/gifts).



Chapter 1  
After the Season five ending ; before Fight The Future   
The first time Mulder and Scully were off the X-Files, they had been separated as partners. Mulder was afraid for their safety and their meetings were in secret. They hadn’t been partners long before this forced separation. Scully was surprised how much she missed Mulder. There were physical symptoms of pain, of loss, of separation. She found herself waking up at night and looking at the phone that didn’t ring. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and Scully missed Mulder. When the X-Files has been reopened, both Scully and Mulder were excited to begin the work again with one another. There was no question as to where Scully belonged.   
This time with the fire in the office and the closing of the X-Files, they are not separated as partners. For the first time they are partners doing the type of menial work that a majority of FBI agents do for some of their career. Mulder had been a golden boy, though, and never had to do any of the grunt work. Scully had avoided the grunt work because she was a medical doctor. At one time both had been deemed too valuable to the bureau to engage in newbie work. However, they are no longer valuable commodities to the bureau.   
A Mulder without meaningful work can be an unpleasant partner. Boredom in general he does not suffer well. He struggles with what to do with his over active brain which fires on more cylinders than most people. He chews more sunflowers seeds, constantly fiddles with the radio while he drives, sleep even less than usual simply because he has no mental stimulation. Beyond this is the fact that the assignments are intentionally meaningless as a punishment which causes him to react like a petulant little boy. He might be known for his intellect but he is driven by emotional impulses. What Scully finds infuriating is that he does not seemed to grasp the simple concept that if you were being punished for violating the rules you should not violate more rules. With all the connections from point A to B to C that his brilliant mind makes, understanding the quid pro quo of breaking the rules = punishment and conforming to the rules meant the punishment would be lifted is something you think a man of his intellect could understand.   
Scully is fed up! She left behind a medical career for what? She is being punished as well as Mulder. If her father were alive he would be so ashamed of her. As much as Mulder blames himself for things he was not responsible for like Scully being abducted, her sister being shot, her cancer, he is oblivious to how his career choices impact her career.   
On long drives doing monotonous work, they make snarky comments to each other and, then, nod to each other as they go into their separate hotel rooms. They wake the next morning and go through it all again.   
On the other hand, now and then, when a good radio station is available and the wind isn’t blowing and they are working in a civilized location with decent food, they laugh together about how different things are now. The work they are doing is meaningless. It is not stressful. It is not dangerous. It does not require long hours. When Scully can engage Mulder enough so he lets go of his anger and his boredom, then they can enjoy each other’s company in a way that didn’t seem possible when assigned to the X-Files. After all, they aren’t disagreeing over cases. Do you think that farmer with all that fertilizer is a terrorist Mulder? No, neither do I… case closed. In this sense they are getting along better than ever.   
Scully is reminded of long family vacations when she spent too much time in a confined car with her brothers and her sister. Only this isn’t a vacation and there is no end in sight.   
One day Scully suggests they read the same books so they will have something to talk about during their long drives. Mulder sighs and says quietly “So, it has come to that, has it?”   
That night in a small town bookstore Scully buys them each a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The next two days in between long drives to do background checks they have heated conversations. “Mulder…” Scully says incredulously and Mulder smiles, “I haven’t heard that tone when you say my name in a while.” Scully mentally congratulates herself on finding such a simple solution to having X-files like arguments and returning the equilibrium, the routine, of their relationship.   
She congratulated herself too soon. A day later and Mulder is back to his petulant little boy act. She starts to talk about how vampires cannot be real. Mulder silently pulls the car over in nowhere Texas and gets out. When he returns from peeing she is out of the car and looking at a cow in a field nearby. He simply nods at her and gets back in the car. They drive silently for forty miles. Scully approaches the subject again. Mulder holds up his hand. “Why does it matter? The truth may be out there about vampires, but we are not going to find it. Onto the next farmer.”  
The days’ work over, they return to their hotel room early, nod to each other and enter their room without speaking. Two hours later Mulder knocks on her door. He is dressed in his running clothes. He hands her a book. “To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s one of your favorites, isn’t it?” Scully smiles and nods. “Let’s try this one.”   
A pleasant week later they have talked the book to death. With flights booked to DC the next day, are spending the night in Dallas. They see the theater marquee at the same time: A classic movie house showing the classic movie made out of the book.   
After a pleasant evening, they are walking back from the theater when Mulder stops and faces Scully.   
“Scully, maybe we are making this more difficult than it needs to be.” When Scully raises her eyebrows quizzically, Mulder say “I feel like you are looking for ways to entertain me. “  
Scully is hurt that he is pouring rain down upon their pleasant evening.   
“I know you are bored, Mulder and angry and discouraged. “  
“So are you. “  
“I handle it better.”  
“Not all the time, you don’t, and we are with each other all the time. We’re both miserable and stuck with each other and driving each other miserable. Any two people would drive one another crazy. We’re getting on each other’s nerves.”   
“That’s why I thought if we read books and talked to each other about the books.”  
“You trying to entertain me Scully is really annoying.” Before Scully could respond Mulder stopped her. “No, I’m not doing this well. I mean…This has been fun tonight. Why don’t we just… you know… why don’t we just…become friends.”  
Scully gives him one of her fierce looks. “Are you saying we’re not friends? ”  
“Of course, we’re friends but, you know, we have some time now to go to the movies together, to museums, to book stores. Why don’t you come running with me occasionally? You know. Don’t’ try to give us something to talk about. We have all kinds of shared interests,. Let’s just relax and do things.”  
“You think the answer to us being stuck together all the time is to spend more time together?” Scully gives him a look like he just told her the hotel they are staying at is haunted.   
“I think no matter what we do we are going to annoy each other like crazy until we are over our punishment, if that ever happens or until one of us quits, but maybe we will both handle it better and it won’t bother us so much if we just, you know, hang out and enjoyed each other during all the time we currently have where we’re not really doing much in the way of work. I miss enjoying your company. I’m spending all my time with you and missing you at the same time.”  
Scully thinks, biting her lip, and says “It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” After a long enough break to see Mulder’s face drop she says, “I want to try it.”   
“Really?” Mulder asks as if she just told him she believed in ghosts.   
“Yes, Really!”   
They resumed walking to the hotel with smiles on their faces.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2   
Season 6 post Two Fathers/ One Son  
The last thing Mulder expected following all they had been through was for Spender to suggest Mulder and Scully should return to the X-files and for Scully to tell him privately after that meeting that she was thinking of asking for reassignment.   
“What? We are back on The X-Files. The punishment is over. We can go back to…”  
“To what, Mulder? I’m not the one you want on the X-Files. You want Diana.”   
“That is ridiculous.”   
“She’s the one you trusts. She is the one you turned to.”   
“How many times do I have to tell you….”   
“It’s absurd, Mulder. I gave up a medical career and an up and coming FBI career and the men who abducted me are gone. They are burned. And whatever else you want to accomplish would be better with a believer.”   
“I meant everything I said in the hallway the last time you wanted to walk away. You kept me honest. “  
“But a lot has happened since then.” She says, but thinks to herself that a lot has not happened. The kiss that almost happened in that hallway was never discussed between them. During the time of their punishment, after they had decided to spend more of their time enjoying each other company, they finally got to know each other on a whole different level. They had shared stories, tears, silliness, boredom and existed as two friends. They had become even flirtatious with each other. But any thought that it would be more ended when instead of believing what she and the lone gunmen told him about Diana, he had went to Diana. She was done competing. She was done waiting for something that would never happen.   
“It’s a new start, Mulder. It’s a new start for you at the X-Files. It’s a good time for me to go.” 

The next day on a Friday they are sitting in Skinner’s office.   
He is reviewing their personnel files from the time when he had not supervised them.   
“Well, agents. I know it sounds mundane, but Mulder hasn’t taken vacation since the last vacation I forced him to take one over a year ago. You cannot keep accumulating time and not using it. It’s against bureau policy. Why didn’t you take time off during the last year? You hated the work you were doing.”   
“I just… I don’t know, sir” Mulder doesn’t want to tell Skinner in front of Scully that the only thing he had left in his life,after being removed from the X-Files, was Scully and he couldn’t stand the thought of not being close to her even when they are bickering.   
“Well, next week off Mulder that’s an order.”   
“Sir…”   
Skinner’s look shut Mulder down. Skinner turns his attention to Scully. “Can you get the office up and running, the transfer of cases completed while he is on vacation.”   
Mulder shuts his eyes expecting that now Scully would turn in her request for transfer.   
“Actually, sir, I was going to request a week’s vacation as well. I know I don’t have as much accrued as Mulder, but we have been through a lot lately. I feel if I took a vacation I could come back more refresh.”   
Skinner nods. “Ok, agents take off next week. We will see you the following Monday. ”   
They walk into the hall, slowly down the hallway without talking and enter an empty elevator. Mulder is afraid to talk. He is afraid to say anything. Why had she changed her mind?   
“Well, Mulder, where are we going on vacation?”   
He looks at her. Her eyes are sparkling the way they did doing their more leisure time over the last few months.   
“Where ever you want, Scully.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3   
Mulder is doing his petulant little boy act again.   
“Staycation, Scully? I just don’t think… I mean, I will just end up being anxious knowing I’m so close to the office and that so much needs to be done to set it up.”   
“No, Mulder, we are going to enjoy ourselves doing all the things that tourists do in DC… and we are going to watch movies, read books, and cook together.”  
“We can’t be together all the time, Scully. You will end up at your place and me at mine. I thought you wanted to spend it together.”   
That is the thing that is really bothering Mulder. Vacation with Scully sounds wonderful- wherever- somewhere tropical, somewhere in the woods, somewhere in the city, wherever – but together, in hotel rooms next to each other where they would see each other first thing in the morning and end the night being the last person they talked to. A staycation meant – what? Making plans to go to a museum one day – see you at 9 at the Smithsonian – saying goodbye after an early dinner, maybe the next day not seeing each other and getting together in the evening for a movie. A staycation meant long stretches of time with no Scully and no reason not to go into work to start organizing the office.   
“Mulder, we are spending our vacation together. It’s the reason I took vacation as the same time as your vacation. We will split our time between our two places. You have a bed now, right – so I will sleep on the couch at your place and you will sleep on the couch at mine. We will get up when we want and go to bed when we want and I will give you a treat and clean your place and I will let you get mine all dirty.” Scully is all smiles and hasn’t said a word about why she decided not to ask for a transfer.   
“That sounds amazing, Scully, but I will sleep on the couch both places.”


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:   
They decide that with the week off and two week-ends they would spend 7 days together. They would take Saturday away from one another to prepare for vacation. Then, starting Sunday morning they would spend 3 and a half days at Mulders and then Wednesday at noon 3 and a half days at Scully ending Saturday night whenever they had just had enough of each other. Then they would each have a Sunday to prepare to return to their reassignment to the X-files.   
Scully spends the Saturday before their staycation organizing. She packs for Mulder’s. She cleans her gun. She calls her mom. She went and got a manicure. She does laundry.  
Mulder, annoyed that Scully thought one of their days should be spent cleaning his apartment, cleans, shops for groceries and for new sheets for his new bed.  
7 a.m. on Sunday morning Scully arrives at Mulder’s apartment with two suitcases and a back pack. Mulder helps her carry the items into his bedroom. “Scully it’s more than you take when we leave town for work.” “I wasn’t quite sure what we would be doing so…” her voice trails off and Mulder realizes she is standing in the living room looking around.   
He comes out of the bedroom with a smile. Scully looks at him and nods. His place is acceptable in her eyes.   
“Come in, Scully, welcome to Fox’s Bed and Breakfast.”   
Scully enters Mulder’s room. The bed had pink sheets and a pink comforter with pink pillows and a note on the bed that says “Welcome, Katherine Dana Scully.” There is a pink robe: a little larger than Scully typically uses and pink slippers with white roses on them. There are pink towels and soaps and lotions, shampoo and conditioners of different fragrances and a candle waiting beside the door to the restroom. “I know it’s a lot of pink, Scully, but I wanted to make it clear for the next 3 and a half days that this is your domain. It’s your room at the Fox’s bed and breakfast.”   
Scully smiles at him. “Mulder, you didn’t have to do all this.”   
They are silent for a few minutes as Mulder watches Scully smell the lotions and walk around the room. “It’s time for breakfast now, Scully.” She realizes now she smells coffee. “Don’t worry. I didn’t cook, but I went to the bakery you like by your place and bought some muffins.” He stops awkwardly. Is he trying too hard?   
“Mulder, I want to spend today doing whatever you normally do on Sunday.” Scully says as she finishes cleaning the few dishes from breakfast.   
“I don’t think it’s really activities you would enjoy.”  
“I’m just curious, Mulder – a normal Sunday in your life.”  
Mulder shrugs. He looks at the clock. It was 8:30 a.m. “So by now I would have gone for a run. Stopped somewhere for coffee and donuts on the way back.”  
“Ok, and then…”   
Mulder looks embarrassed. “I generally spends Sunday morning watching news programs, reading the Sunday newspapers, going through some stacks of books I’ve been reading. Sometimes that’s how I know about a case to present to you when we come into the office on Monday.”   
Scully thinks to herself that his world could be very small, but nods and says, “I brought some medical journals in case we had some down time.”   
And that’s how the first morning goes, two agents doing separate work together. Scully occasionally reads something to him from a medical book that seem pertinent to a case they had in the past, but she spends lot of time discretely observing Mulder. He gets intensely interested in something on the news and then reads the box scores from last night’s games. He goes to a stack of books and pulls one out and turns to the end. It is a Native American creation story book. She looks at the titles of the other books in the stack- a book examining ancient Christian texts, a book of Egyptian legends, a biography of Malcolm X. She realizes his world is actually very large and expansive.   
About noon Mulder says, “Ok, Scully it’s time to go out.” “Out?” “Out. You are dressed ok, but if you brought gym clothes and a swimming suit you should bring them. “   
In a few minutes they are ready to go “out.” In what seemed like a meandering way, Mulder ends up at a park with a pick- up basketball game. “So, Scully, it may be boring for you.”   
“Go ahead Mulder.” After a few minutes she overhears one of the guys say “Oh, stop peacocking for your lady.”   
Then an hour later he is back beside her. “Are you ready to move on, Scully?”   
Next thing she knows they have walked to the Lincoln Monument. “I come here every Sunday, Scully. Either in the morning for my run or during my afternoon out if I ran somewhere else in the morning like down to Georgetown.”  
“You come to see Lincoln every Sunday, Mulder?”  
“Of course,” he says and then walks with her down the stairs. “Then, I walk the national mall. There is always something, Scully, a drum circle or a kite flying contest. We live in a fascinating town.” As they walk around the national mall, Scully smiles. “These are touristy things I never do Mulder, but it’s your every Sunday.” They walk for about an hour, stopping now and then, outside the white house or to see a child playing with his parents. Then suddenly they are at the FBI gym. “I do about an hour of weights lifting and then an hour of swimming. “   
Scully was exhausted despite her own physical stamina. “And you do this after running in the morning, and then basketball, and then a walk through the national mall park?” “Well, its Sunday, Scully,” Mulder says as if that explained it. So she rows on a rowing machine while Mulder works out and then they swim laps with her trying not to look at Mulder in his speedos.   
On the way walking home, Mulder stops at a library. His back pack is full of the books from that morning. He checks them in and Scully sits and reads a magazine until he returns with five more books of different topics.   
They are back to the apartment early evening and Mulder says “order in pizza and watch a movie or something.” Scully agrees. Mulder puts on some documentary about something. Scully sits beside him and gradually starts to nod to sleep. He puts up his arm and she slips in closer with her head on his shoulder.   
“Today was better with you sharing it with me, Scully.” She smiles. It was a successful first day of vacation. She will be in bed shortly with a pink everything all around her in Mulder’s room that he has set up just for her.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
On Monday morning Scully wakes briefly when she hears the front door opens and close. She notices the clock on Mulder’s bed stand says 6 a.m. She wakes fully about 7:30. She stretches. Truthfully, there is too much pink in this room for her. She is a bit unnerved by the mirror above the bed. And when did Mulder get a water bed?   
She realizes Mulder is standing by the door in his running shorts and holding two cups of coffee. She wonders how long he has been standing there. He notices her noticing him looking at her.   
“Coffee in bed, Scully, at Fox’s Bed and Breakfast.” He brings it to her.   
“Mulder, have you already been out for a run?”   
“It’s a vacation, Scully,” he says as if that explains it.   
“Why don’t we take the train into New York? If we leave by 10 we can be there for a late lunch, go to a museum or something. It will feel more like a vacation. Do you mind if I take the first shower?”  
Scully sipped from her coffee while Mulder is in the shower. A day in New York City. She is enjoying her vacation so far.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
Mulder turns, runs backwards for a short while, slowing down considerably. Scully sweats from her upper lips when she is truly tired. He enjoys seeing this and watching her stride, her athleticism, her determination.   
“Little legs can’t keep up?”   
As she tries to come up with a retort, he falls backwards over a bush. She passes him and runs up ahead. He catches up.   
“Do you know where we are going?”   
“Going? I thought we were just running?”   
He turns down a familiar street. “The Lone Gunmen are expecting us for huevos rancheros.” 

It is the last evening at Mulder’s home. They had breakfast and stayed at the lone gunmen until early afternoon. The conspiracy theorists are excited about Mulder’s return to the X-files. The conversation alternates between outlandish theories, casual teasing and serious discussion about government conspiracies and the need to protect the public.   
“What are you looking forward to the most about returning to the X-files, Dana?” Byers asks Scully.   
Scully and Mulder exchange a glance, the room stills, the lone gunmen look at one another realizing the question had raised some unexpected tension.   
“Conferring with you guys” Scully says to cut the tension and the male dominated conversation resumes.   
These guys are now Scully’s friends as well. They helped her, took her side with providing information about Diana. She is comfortable with them. Nevertheless this interactions injects the X-files into the middle of their vacation and reminds both agents of their different reactions to the return to the X-Files. With the lone gunmen, Mulder is boisterous about his triumphant return. He is in the midst of friends who are excited that he is getting to return to the work he loves. She should be able to give him that as well. She is his friend and partner sharing this return with him, but the thought fills her heart with dread instead of happiness.   
They run back to Mulder’s neighborhood, stopping to rent movies and to buy sandwiches, chips and beers.   
Sitting in front of the television that night, their feet on his coffee table, he brings up the subject that they have been avoiding. “Why did you decide to join me on a forced vacation, Scully? I was expected you to ask for a transfer instead?”   
“I still might, Mulder. I can ask when we return or in a week or two. See how it goes.”   
Mulder remains quiet as he thinks about the impermanence of their partnership as she is describing it.   
“Do you ever think about how much our friendship and partnership has changed over the years, Mulder?”   
“Isn’t that true of every friendship and partnership?”   
“When we return to the X-files, Mulder, I will miss us just hanging out and being friends the way we have without being on the X-files.”   
“We won’t still do this, Scully?”   
“Not in the same way. The work will be all consuming. It will invade every aspect of our life. It will take over our leisure and spare time.”   
“It’s my life, Scully. It has been since long before I know you. But it doesn’t have to be everything to you. Stay with me on the X-Files and I will give you space, Scully, to be away from it and me when you need to me. Just stay with me, please.”   
Scully realizes that in Mulder’s way he is being generous although he misunderstands her concerns. She doesn’t want time away from Mulder and the X-files. She wants time away from the X-Files with Mulder.   
“I will do my best to give you the space you need away from the X-files and me, if you will stay as my partner.” Mulder repeats softly again. He is heartbroken over the thought that she might in a week or two or more request a transfer. In his mind he is meeting her half-way.   
“Ok, Mulder. I won’t ask for a transfer for a while. We will see how it goes.”


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7   
Scully is slow to wake up in the morning. She is sad to be leaving her pink space at Fox’s Bed and Breakfast. Mulder waits patiently and then goes into her room and begins to pack. He is boisterous and excited. Instead of a petulant little boy he is an ever stimulated little boy.   
It has been a vacation, Scully thinks, as she drives him to her apartment. She is experiencing that sadness at it being over and yet that relief at returning home, but she wishes she had thought over this transfer of locations better. Mulder and her arriving together is a little different than Mulder coming over to her place when she is already there. There is an awkwardness after last night conversation. Mulder for his part feels almost a sort of reference for the fact that he is going to spend multiple nights at Scully’s. He is relieved after last night’s conversation that Scully is not going to ask for an immediate transfer. He feels in a way as if he should offer to carry her over the threshold.   
Yet they don’t know what to do with each other at Scully’s apartment. She unpacks. She has made no welcoming arrangements for Mulder. She should have bought him sports oriented towels or something, she thinks. She didn’t even buy any of his favorite snacks.   
Mulder flips through the channel, picks up magazines. He feels trapped in her apartment. He is afraid to get anything dirty. He doesn’t know where to spread out his belongings. He is an invader in her space. He suggests that they go out for dinner. They each take turns changing clothes. They eat Italian and drink a little too much wine. When they come back to Scully’s it gives them an excuse to admit that they are tired and call it an early night. As Mulder prepares the couch, Scully turns at her door to look at him. He looks at her and nods. She enters her bedroom without saying a word.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8   
Scully hears the front door opens and close at 6:30 a.m. Mulder going for his run. She can breathe for a minute without Mulder in her place. He just seems so big, she thinks. Big in his beliefs, big in his intensity, big in his body and big in her space. His apartment is smaller than yours, she reminds herself, but the switch in locations have certainly changed the dynamics.   
In the living room she notices he has folded the sheets and blankets, neatly packed his belongs back up in the small overnight bag he brought. There actually are only little signs that he is inhabiting the same space as hers. The coffee is made and there is a note saying that he will bring back breakfast.   
When he returns she is showered and fully dressed. There is no need for the type of causal intimacy they had at Mulder’s. He comes in with ingredients to make smoothies which are quickly made, quickly consumed, quickly cleaned up.   
“What would a typical day off look like for you, Scully?”   
“Well, I spend the day cleaning.”  
Mulder looks around the apartment incredulously. “Your place is spotless.”   
“Well, I cleaned it on the last day I was here knowing you would be coming.”  
Mulder shakes his head. “So, is there any cleaning left to do?”   
“Always, Mulder. There are always cleaning projects I haven’t yet gotten to.”   
“How can I help?”   
She shakes her head. “You don’t have to…”  
“Scully, “ he says in an exasperated tone. “We did my normal things on your first day at my place. Let me in your world a little.”   
“Well,” Scully is embarrassed to ask. “There are some things I have trouble doing because I am short. If you could help me organize my cabinets a little because you can reach up and take things down and put some things back up.”   
So they spend the day organizing Scully’s closets. What Mulder learns about Scully is how important it is to her that she has various plastic and wooden containers so that her winter sweater and summer shorts never come into contact. Her good china and her party paper plates left over from some holiday or another would never know each other existed.   
Later that afternoon with pizza order in they were organizing her most recent pictures into her various picture boxes, family pictures into one box (she slapped his hand when he tried to look at pictures of little Scully), friend pictures into another, landscape pictures – so many taken recently – into a third box. She answers the door when the pizza comes and he is left with only a few more pics quickly organized except for some pictures of them together. They are field file pictures mostly. Apparently she has a standing request for all pictures taken of either of them in field investigations to be sent to her. He looks at the boxes- family, friends, landscapes. Where do the pics of him belong? She brings the pizza back and sees his dilemma. She goes to her room and returns with a smaller box which says Mulder. He didn’t know whether to flattered he has his own box or insulted that he was such an anomaly he didn’t fit into any of her other boxes. Anyway, they are mostly work pictures he thinks and makes mental note to ask the lone gunmen to take some pics of Scully and him the next time they are just hanging out.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9   
“Did your mom like baking, Fox?”   
Breakfast at Margaret Scully’s was a prelude to baking. Cookies, banana breads, coffee cakes. Fox Mulder has a girly apron on and was holding a rolling pin.   
“My mother really wasn’t the baking type.”   
“Dana always used to avoid the kitchen during baking day if she could.”  
Mulder makes a face at Scully.   
“She always was more interested in playing with the boys or, later on, some science experiment.”   
“Your boys didn’t bake with you?”   
Mrs. Scully and Mulder smiled at the thought of Bill Jr. baking.   
“Why did you start baking with your mother, Scully?”   
“I overheard a conversation between my mom and a friends of hers about how much baking power to put into biscuits to get them the perfect fluffiness and I realized that everything we baked was in fact a chemistry experiment.”   
“Experiments you can eat” Mulder stole a cookie from where they were cooling.   
Scully knew her mother liked Mulder. She hadn’t realized how normal it would feel for Mulder to be in her mother’s kitchen. When Margaret Scully asked him to get something from the top shelf he had joked, “You Scully women just keep me around to be tall for you.” Somehow he doesn’t seem too big for her mother’s kitchen. She watches her mother give Mulder guidance on how exactly to roll the dough.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10  
“So I know what’s next Scully.”   
They are at her home on a Friday night with treats for tomorrow breakfasts and treats for Mulders to take when he returns to his apartment tomorrow afternoon.   
“What’s next, Mulder?”   
“Well, it s Friday night. I know your routine. You come home from an exhausting week with your partner and you soak in a long, hot bubble bath. So since we’re doing everything together this week…?” He looks at her with a special smile “Shouldn’t I draw our bath water?”   
“You’ve had too much sugar today, Mulder. It’s making you delusional.”   
He pretends to pout. Then he says, “Ok but look what your mother gave me.” He pulls out of a bag a particularly nice bottle of red wine.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11   
Scully hears the front door open and close at 6:30 in the morning. Mulder going out for his run. She opens her eyes reluctantly. She is a little hung over from the wine last night. She puts on her robe and comes out into the living room. Mulder has not folded up his blankets or his sheets and his overnight back is open with some of his clothing on the ground. She guesses the honeymoon is over. Their wine glasses are still on the counter unwashed. Mulder must have gotten hungry in the middle of the night because there are cookie crumbs on the counter. She sighs in exasperation and cleans up the crumbs before making coffee.   
Mulder comes in as she is folding his blankets and sheets. He takes off his sun glasses. He does not seem to have the same focus as he typically does after the run.   
“I found it a little hard to get up and go running this morning, Scully.”   
“I’m surprised you did.”   
She had been expecting him to bring back something for breakfast, but seeing his hands empty she opens the fridge and brings out eggs and milk.   
“Scully, we have cinnamon buns we made yesterday.”   
“Our lives just can’t be sugar, Mulder.” She snaps at him.   
“Oh, if only it could be though.” Mulder says quietly and goes to the cabinet to pull down plates.   
They eat breakfast and clean up in silence. Mulder says “Well, we said we will be done with our staycation today when we are tired of each other. Should I just go now?”   
“Are you tired of me, Mulder?”   
Before he could answer, the phone starts to ring. They are both startled. Their staycation have been remarkably ring free on either their cell phones or home phones. Scully answers the phones, sighs exasperatedly, and says “Just a minute.” She hands the phone to Mulder. “Does she have to call here?”   
Mulder takes the phone. “Diana? Yes, tomorrow. We can meet at the office about noon.”   
Mulder hangs up the phone, turns and looks at Scully. “She just couldn’t reach me at my home, Scully. We are meeting to do a cross over since she has been working on the X-Files. You are welcome to join us, but I didn’t think you would want to join us.”   
Scully shakes her head. He purses her lips and tightens her jaws. She opens her mouths to speak.   
“We are still on staycation, Scully.” Mulder stops her.   
“The problem with vacation is that eventually you have to go back to real life.”  
“I wish you were as happy to be back on the X-files on Monday as I am.” Mulder says.   
Scully goes into her room and slams the door.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12   
After a long bath and a couple of hours of trying to read, Scully gives up on thinking that Mulder will have the grace to pack up and leave quietly. He watches some sporting event on television louder than she thinks he needs to and is now making himself at home in her kitchen. When the smell from the kitchen reaches her to remind her it has been hours since breakfast, she walks out.   
“You’re cooking?” She asks.   
“I’ve done cooked.” She notices the table is set and candles are lit. There is a knock on the door.   
“I ordered a few things.”   
Mulder pays the delivery driver. Her returns with a box and a bouquet of flowers. “Would you find a vase?” Scully takes the flowers. What is it about flowers that makes them such good peacemakers? Mulder unpacks a bottle of white wine, some French bread, cheeses, olives.   
“Mushroom soup is one of the few things I can make, Scully, so I got some things to go with it and some cannoli’s for dessert. “  
“You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”   
“It’s our last meal of vacation, Scully, and I want it to end on a good note. We’ve had some fun, haven’t we?”   
Scully thinks over the week and smiles. She nods.   
The meal over, Mulder takes the dishes to the sink and rinses them. He returns, pours the last of the wine into the glasses and sits back down at the table.   
“When Diana and I were partners together and romantically involved, it was easy. It fit. She believed in the work. She was ok with my life style. It was similar to hers. The work and the life bled into one another. When she left I was sad, but not devastated. I could easily let her back into my life, but it would just be satisfying basic needs.”   
Scully starts to speak – “Let me finish, Scully.”   
“You walk into the basement office and you didn’t fit into the work. You didn’t believe. You tested my assumptions. You made the work better. I trusted the results of our investigations more because you were involved. The work evolved because I had someone with your expertise and knowledge in the partnership. And you tested me. You challenged me. There should be no doubt in your mind that you are the one I want as my partner, in the X – files. You, Scully.”   
“I told you I wouldn’t request a transfer. We will see how it goes.”   
“My work bleeds into my life, Scully. It always will. I understand that this is not how you live your life. You compartmentalize your life. I can try to respect that. I will try to respect that. I told you that already.”   
Scully nods. “It’s not that I don’t want to be back on the X-Files. Your life work, Mulder… it’s like discovering that baking is science. I enjoy the work.”   
Mulder asks. “So, we are good?”   
Scully nods. “Yes, Mulder, we are good.”   
Mulder goes to pick up his overnight bag. He bends to kiss her on the cheek. “Thanks for a great vacation,” he whispers. Then he says “I will see you Monday.”   
The vacation ends. Scully finishes her wine with a great sense of sadness. It didn’t take much self-reflection to see the problem. She spent the time in medical school, but selected a career in law enforcement. She does love the work on the X-Files. It is fascinating, but none of them -medicine, law enforcement or science consumed her completely as Mulder’s work did for him. . She is intrigued by Mulder’s life. A life that includes morning runs, seeing Lincoln’s memorial as a ritual every Sunday. It’s a life she might enjoy. She, also, knows that he had invited her in, created a space for her in his life and because of that she fits. He didn’t fit in her life, but she hadn’t really created a space for him or welcomed him in. This part of her that needed this compartmentalized life with no bleed over is the part of her that keeps Mulder distant- in his place in her life. She remembers the first time when the X-Files was closed and how much she missed Mulder as her work partner. Her she is now with the X-Files being open again and she is lonely again for the leisure time Mulder she needs to give up to keep her work and her life in their proper compartments.


End file.
